4 THE ADA PRACTICAL GUIDE TO INTERNET MARKETING Before Spending Another Marketing Dollar, Read This Marketing is more than just getting new patients through the door. It encompasses the entire patient experience, from the first phone call, to the first appointment, to follow up and beyond. In fact, spending marketing dollars to drive new patients into the practice can be a waste of money and effort if internal practice management processes aren’t in already solidly in place. Marketing is not a magical faucet, where with the flick of a wrist, someone can guarantee new patient flow. The truth is that when it comes to the marketing faucet, the laws of physics apply you have to exert a force upon the faucet to start the flow. Three forces in particular will help increase new patient flow, and they are three of a dentist’s most valuable, and limited, resources: time, money and energy. So, before spending your precious time, money and energy on increasing new patient flow, it’s critical to take a look at the existing new patient flow that is already naturally coming out of the proverbial faucet. What is catching the current flow? Is it a nice solid bucket, catching every drop? Or is it a sieve, resulting in missed opportunities to capture new patients? Marketing is more than just getting new patients through the door. It encompasses the entire patient experience, from the first phone call, to the first appointment, to follow up and beyond. Your missed new (and existing) patient opportunities are the “holes in the bucket.” Holes in the bucket may include: • Not knowing how many new patient inquiries already come in naturally each month • Not offering new patients an appointment within 24 to 72 hours • Lack of coordination in the handoff between the hygienist and the dentist • A patient coordinator (or dentist) who is uncomfortable discussing finances • A front desk team that doesn’t answer the phone properly, follow up with patients regularly, can’t address financial or insurance concerns, or turns patients away for being “shoppers” • A dental team that doesn’t consistently ask for referrals and online reviews Wouldn’t it be good to know if the practice was already getting enough new patient calls, but simply not appointing them? Or to understand the challenges that exist preventing the cultivation of long-term patients who accept treatment recommendations? No amount of external marketing can grow a practice that has dozens of holes in its marketing bucket in this regard, marketing and practice management truly do go hand in hand. So if there are issues to shore up in the practice’s verbal skills and internal processes, they should be addressed concurrently with the development and implementation of any marketing plan.